Pretty Little Liars Season 5 Episode 25 – TV Review

I feel you, Roma.

Well, PLL has officially, 100% jumped the shark. Hard.

You thought that Ravenswood crap was terrible?

Oh, honey. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

TL;DR Holy shit, Pretty Little Liars has jumped the shark. Mona is fucking alive, the Liars are trapped in some sprawling prison bunker; Mona and Spencer apparently got engineering degrees when we weren’t looking; at least Peter, Veronica, and the cops are now on the A trail.

The Liars are all together this episode, so the Liar-by-Liar breakdown is on the bench, again. A abducts Hanna, Emily, Aria, and Spencer from their prison transport van and puts them in a bunker filled with rooms that are replicas of their own bedrooms. Is A the fucking Umbrella Corporation? What the fuck? Next, we find out Mona’s alive and has been imprisoned there since her supposed death. And she’s being forced by A to pretend she’s Alison. Just because, you know? The girls manipulate a prom that A is making them put on to try to escape, but find that the entrance to the bunker is surrounded by an electric fence, and the season ends as they stand around helplessly. Good. God. Meanwhile, Peter and Veronica join Caleb, Toby, and Ezra to try to find the Liars (they are also filled in on everything A). Roma, who initially writes their disappearance off as an escape, eventually gets on board, and they manage to find A’s control room, complete with camera footage from the bunker. So maybe, fucking maybe, the police might actually help the Liars out for once. Meanwhile, Alison is still uneventfully behind bars. And we get one measly shot of Andrew listening in on a phone conversation between Veronica and Melissa.

Which we, the audience, don’t get to hear. Of course.

Like, holy shit, PLL. You’ve done some stupid, garbage stuff along the way. I was willing to forgive Ravenswood because it was so gloriously cancelled and forgotten about.

And I’ve tediously put up with all the needlessly “creepy,” horror movie elements that have always been a disappointing component of this show. Remember that stupid doll shop from a couple of seasons ago? Jesus.

How in the hell are you going to keep this up for another two whole goddamn seasons?

With any luck, you’ll be given a Gossip Girl/Glee style exit and chopped down to a half order just to wrap this meandering mess of a show up.

And would it be so inconvenient to kill off Aria? Throw me a bone here, baby.

Why I hate this episode:

The bunker. It’s an actually operational, enormous underground bunker in the middle of the woods. Complete with replicas of each of the Liars’ bedrooms, as well as the Dilaurentis lounge room. Unless the A-team is comprised of an entire construction company, there is no way in the world that they managed to put this together. What. The. Fuck. PLL. Do the target audience of on-their-phones-most-of-the-time teenagers even buy this crap any more? I just can’t stop saying “holy shit” to myself. It’s just that bad.

Then we’ve got the Mona reveal. You showed us her dead fucking body in the mid-season finale. This isn’t Mystic Falls, fuckwit. You can’t just drop a Bonnie Ex Machina and bring the dead back to life arbitrarily. Despite the absurd levels of evil A is going to, I’m finding it hard to be concerned for the Liars anymore, really. We’re at the end of our fifth season, and what exactly has A even done to them that’s so bad, with any lasting impact? Basically, what I’m saying is: kill Aria.

Mona and Spencer devise some sort of machine that they can link to a camera to disable the electricity in the bunker, which would allow them to escape. These girls are in high school, right? What the fuck? The show just expects us to accept this and move on. I mean, how else are they going to escape an Umbrella Corporation-esque super bunker? Maybe not put them in an Umbrella Corporation-esque super bunker in the first fucking place!

Their escape attempt is fucking bizarre, too. They make a point of saying earlier in the episode that there’s five of them and only one of A, implying that they can take him on physically if they have to. So when they do manage to get him out of hiding at the prom and short the power, they all promptly jog off instead of swarming him and beating his motherfucking ass. Goddamn, bitches. He’s right there. I know you’re all delicate little flowers, but take a fucking chance. One of you is a lesbian, right?

During the escape attempt, Spencer arbitrarily breaks off on her own to go waltzing into the previously-locked room of A’s. Did I mention that A should, if he was chasing after them (he’s not. Because this show is retarded. But they should reasonably assume that he is, right?), be right on their heels? Because, again, they didn’t attack him. But no, Spencer thinks it’s a fabulous idea to watch home movies by herself.

Worse, A manages to corner her in the room. And he doesn’t do anything. He runs away when Mona shows up.

Worse, the home movie that Spencer watches is of Jessica with a baby girl in her arms (presumably, Alison), and two similarly-aged (twins?) young boys. There are also photos of the boys in the room. Whatever the true meaning of that, it seems to be that A’s motivation concerns only the Dilaurentis family. So why the fuck are they tormenting Alison’s stupid school friends? How does any of this relate to anything they’ve done? What the hell happened to this show?

Worse, when Mona comes in and sees the photos and stuff, she’s all like “A has a soul.” Who wrote this dialogue? Good God.

The boys and the Hastings keep the news of the Liars’ disappearance from the other girls’ parents. Ashley has a right to know! I don’t care about the others.

The hand mirror note isn’t brought up at all. What a waste of time that was.

Mona receives an ominous gas mask as a gift from A (Mona is dressed up as Alison at A’s behest, and Alison is his favourite). This thread also isn’t answered.

Veronica suggests she, Peter, and the boys bypass the obstructive police and take the truth about A directly to the media. The boys vote against it because A is too dangerous. A has literally just kidnapped the Liars from a prison transport van. Also, after everything you’ve been through, I think it should be fairly clear that A is capable of anything. Just fucking release the story and bloody try something.

Oh, and Aria’s prom dress is rubbish. Which is in no way surprising.

But it’s not all bad:

The other girls’ dresses are pretty nice, though. Especially Hanna’s. Since we’re not getting that teased beauty pageant, this will have to suffice.

The best thing about this episode is that Peter, Veronica, and Roma now all know about and believe the A story. These dumbass teenagers might have wanted to keep this shit quiet, but now that some more level-headed adults know, it’s only a matter of time before A’s cloak of mystery is gone. End it.

Mona is amused when the Liars tell her about Alison’s conviction for her murder.

My guess for the true meaning of the home video would be that Andrew might be the other boy (Jason, presumably, would be the first). But, in true PLL style, nothing is set in stone: Jessica doesn’t say the boys’ names, nor does she say that they’re her boys, nor does she say that the baby is even hers. So anything is fair game. And with Mona’s return from the dead despite us seeing her fucking body, there are no guarantees anyway. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the entire series could turn out to be a dream. Wouldn’t that be so totally shocking for reals right!?

The prom appears to be based on a Rosewood prom from several years ago. Spencer identifies it as having the same theme as the last prom Melissa attended, and Ian was her date. Omg you guise, maybe Ian is alive. Wowzers wouldn’t that be a twist!? Someone should email the PLL production office. You might get a consulting credit.

Best line of the episode goes to Peter in his incredulity at Alison’s story of A supposedly killing people: “Oh, come on. If you really believed that, why didn’t you go to the police?” Pretty much.

Spencer deciphers some children’s blocks in her room to apparently make out A’s name as “Charles.” If you even care about anything at this point. I’m not sure if I do.

Oh, and Aria makes the mistake of standing next to her much better dressed friends. Which I appreciate.

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8 responses to “Pretty Little Liars Season 5 Episode 25 – TV Review”

The bunker made me lose my shit. I still haven’t found it. The girls’ dresses were on point though, especially Emily’s and Hanna’s. They’re the best looking Liars imo. But yeah, how’s the show going to explain this away?